LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Linda Bloodworth-Thomason : A Key to That Hollywood-Arkansas Connection

She called the film “The Man From Hope.” It was an attempt to retool Bill Clinton’s image, made by his friend and fellow Arkansan Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the creator, writer and producer of three hit television series--”Designing Women,” “Evening Shade” and “Hearts Afire.” She produced the documentary to emphasize, among other things, Clinton’s regular-guy-ness. It featured folksy interviews with friends and family, along with some rare footage of a young Clinton shaking hands with his political idol, President John F. Kennedy. By omitting any reference to the candidate’s tenure as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, the film managed to de-intellectualize Clinton, defusing his public persona as an elitist.

Bloodworth-Thomason, 45, and her husband, producer Harry Thomason, met the Clintons at the beginning of the ‘80s, and quickly became fast friends. When Clinton announced his run for the White House, Linda and Harry joined him at the statehouse in Little Rock, and stuck with him, providing a variety of services--from getting the governor booked on “Arsenio Hall,” to updating Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe and hairstyle.

When Bloodworth-Thomason was a small child, her family moved just across the Arkansas border to Missouri. There was apparently a good deal of Southern histrionics around the household--it didn’t seem like Christmas, she remembers, until her father made her aunt cry because she voted for Richard M. Nixon. Bloodworth-Thomason claims she based the characters in her program, “Designing Women,” on her father’s men friends, who used to sit around and drink and argue.

Bloodworth-Thomason made her way to Los Angeles in the early ‘70s, and she taught for a time at Jordan High School in Watts. Eventually, she teamed up with another Southerner, Mary Kay Place, and the pair began writing for “M.A.S.H.” Bloodworth-Thomason’s lucky star had already begun to shine--she and Place won an Emmy for their first script, “Hot Lips and Empty Arms.”

The writer met her husband in 1980. They formed a production company, and after a few strikeouts, connected with “Designing Women” in 1986. “Evening Shade,” set in an Arkansas hamlet, followed in 1990, and this year they added “Heart’s Afire,” starring John Ritter and Markie Post as aides to a Southern senator.

Eighteen-hours days are the norm for Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. After several cancellations, she found the time to sit down for an interview, and her graciousness and charm quickly erased any irritation caused by the long cooling of heels.

Question: Is it at all spooky to you that your friends are about to be the President and First Lady?

Answer: No, I think it’s wonderful. I’m so elated for America--that the country finally has the President we deserve. I don’t think there has ever been anyone more ready to hold this job than he is. He is going to bring a kind of inclusive feeling to this country that we haven’t had for a long, long time. I think people are going to be excited about being Americans again.

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Q: Would I be wrong to say you weren’t happy with the way the press covered the campaign, particularly when it came to Bill Clinton?

A: I thought the national media’s behavior during the New Hampshire primary was extremely lacking in fairness. The problem was in New Hampshire--the press was defining Bill Clinton, and it was a Bill Clinton I didn’t even know.

We turned the election around in the snows of New Hampshire, and it was done, not by focus groups or media consultants, but by the people of Arkansas who knew Bill Clinton. They went up to New Hampshire by the hundreds, and they went around and met everybody in the state. Harry and I made some ads which said, “If you want to know about the real Bill Clinton, ask the people who’ve known him the longest.” (Arkansas Sen.) David Pryor took out newspaper ads with names and phone numbers of people down in Arkansas--and a lot of people called from New Hampshire and said, “Who is this guy?” I think that had an enormous impact.

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Q: I read a quote by Clinton’s campaign chairman, Mickey Kantor, who said he didn’t feel you and your husband were very political, that your support for Clinton grew out of friendship. Is that a fair assessment?

A: I would have to say that I’ve been pretty political all my life--I come from a political family. My grandfather was the chairman of the Republican Party in Arkansas, and my father was a liberal attorney. I worked for McGovern, for Gene McCarthy.

It’s not that I have been so political in terms of elections, but more in terms of issues. I’ve been political in my writing in television. I think to put your opinion in art makes it much more interesting. When you are doing entertainment, if it can be meaningful, then all the better.

I’m always amused when I hear people say, “If you are involved in entertainment, you aren’t serious enough to understand politics.” I hear people say sitcom the way they used to say Arkansas.

I don’t use the word sitcom . I think it’s a derisive term. I just call it 22 minutes . I look at it as a little play. But I do it because I want to reach that wide audience. If I can reach 40 million people then I am going to keep working in this arena. But I will try to make the work as significant as something that’s on Broadway or at the Kennedy Center. I take it very seriously.

It’s the same reason that Bill Clinton went on MTV, or “Arsenio Hall.” I don’t think the eloquence and power of his message was diminished by being on Arsenio--it was the same message whether he said it on that program or on McNeil-Leherer. It’s a very populist thing to do, and I don’t understand when people say that’s not presidential. Being President is about being among the people, and what better place to shake hands with America than on the television shows they watch.

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Q: Would you want to see him continue to appear on MTV, on Arsenio, while he is President?

A: I don’t think he should spend his time being on talk shows, but I do think he should continue to have as wide a forum as he can--and if he can do that through town meetings on television, that would be wonderful.

He’s not an elitist, never has been. I think one of the best lines of the campaign came from him. It was: “There is no them in America, there is only us.” I think this politics of inclusion is something that is going to make people excited who may have felt disenfranchised for so long. Now we have hope.

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Q: When you think back on Nancy Reagan, the term First Lady seemed to fit her. Does it seem odd to think of your friend Hillary Clinton with that title, First Lady?

A: I think Hillary is going to redefine that role. It needed to be dusted off--it’s been lost in the quagmire of useless stereotypes. We’ve been looking at the First Ladyship through a Mamie Eisenhower lens, and we don’t have those kind of women anymore. Every woman now has a dream of controlling her own destiny and aspiring to many of the things that men aspire to.

I think the First Lady should be reflective of that, and Hillary Clinton surely is. I mean, this is this person who has spent years flying around in little paper-thin airplanes to the smallest hamlets in Arkansas, through thunderstorms, so she can talk to five or six people about education. She cares so deeply, particularly about the children in this country.

This is not going to be a decorative job--she’s really going to bring some substance to being First Lady.

One of the things I love about Hillary is that she’s going to send a wonderful message to little girls. You see, how her hair is cut is about 148th on her list of priorities. It’s fine to look nice, but I don’t think girls should get up every day and have that be their No. 1 priority in life. Hillary is going to have the kind of influence that a Princess Di or a Jackie Onassis had, but I think she is going to be able to harness that and do real, positive, constructive things.

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Q: You were recently quoted as saying, “A woman has to be very careful about how she assimilates in this business.” Is gender still a problem in Hollywood? Are you always being dealt with as a woman?

A: I have to say that I have no problems with CBS. I don’t feel any discrimination from the network. But in society in general, I think women are still searching for a way to incorporate power and femininity. It’s a tough equation. People like Phyllis Schlafly and the anti-feminist movement play on women’s fears of being unloved, unattractive and undesired. I hope “Designing Women” has shown that women can be attractive and still be in control of their own lives.

People like to believe that a woman who has a lot of power is probably a cold person--not very nice or nurturing--and I have found that to not be the case at all. Things that would appear to be strong or forceful in a man can appear as overbearing or mean-spirited in a woman. I don’t think that’s true, but women have to be aware of it.

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Q: Back to the Clintons. You’ve done your part in helping people understand who they are. But is there something else you think people should know about them, something we haven’t quite gotten?

A: I think they have been over analyzed so much. So perhaps it’s that they are not as complicated as people have been led to believe. Because they are so intelligent, and because they have had so much success and accomplishment, I think what has been overlooked is that, at their core, they are really decent, good-hearted people. I don’t know any two people who are more well-intended.

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Q: Do you and your husband see yourselves as sort of back-porch advisers?

A: No, we really don’t. We just see ourselves as being the best friends we can be. But let me say this--everyone in Arkansas is so proud of them.

Maybe people who aren’t from a small and impoverished state can’t relate to that feeling. You know, my grandfather used to carry Teddy Roosevelt’s number in his back pocket, so he could call him up and tell him how the six Republicans in Arkansas were doing back there. That was when Republicans were Democrats.

Bill Clinton’s grandfather only went to sixth grade, and my grandfather only went to sixth grade, and he was half Cherokee Indian. But he ended up clerking for a judge and becoming a lawyer and then a newspaper editor.

Well, when Bill announced he was running for President, he asked my husband, Harry, to deliver a personal speech about him. So I wrote it and Harry delivered it. It was this beautiful day on the Arkansas River, and there was a line in the speech about this river binding all of us to all of our fathers before us--to Bill’s father, who he never knew, and to our grandfathers. It made a lot of us cry. It was an emotional moment.

And then he came home on election night, a year later, to that very same spot. To see him stand on the steps of the Arkansas state house and accept election as the President of the United States--I can’t tell you the pride that I felt.

But there is something else I would like to clear up. Can we talk about the house we rented?

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Q: OK. This is the house in Summerland you rented as a sort of Western White House for the Clintons. What about it?

A: Well, the press misinterpreted this whole thing. We’re not in the business of leasing houses for people. This is our house, and we plan to live in it, and from time to time our family and friends will visit us--and Bill and Hillary Clinton are among those friends. And that’s all there is to that.

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Q: You have three hit TV shows and your buddies are about to move into the White House. Do you ever feel like you have sort of a lucky star?

A: Absolutely. I think I am the luckiest person. Any time the steamroller flattens me out, I always think something good is just around the corner. I think that’s a character trait of my family. We’re pretty good at dusting ourselves off. But if you can sort of break the bank on the parents you get and the man that you marry, then everything else is icing on the cake. I’ve had that, and I’m extremely grateful.